The Favor
by LoyaulteMeLie
Summary: In the Mirror Universe, T'Pol finds herself in a dilemma. Commander Tucker has the solution. Warning: this story is rated M for adult sexual material. If this material offends you, please do not read it.
1. Chapter 1

**Star Trek (plus all its intellectual property) is owned by Paramount. No infringement intended.**_  
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**Beta'd by Distracted, to whom all due thanks!**

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_No. This cannot be happening. _She sat back and passed a trembling hand across her forehead. The gloss of perspiration there left its sheen on her fingers.

She'd tried to ignore the symptoms: slowly rising temperature, slowly decreasing mental control, and a dull ache in the pit of her stomach that was growing daily into a savage need she could neither control nor slake alone.

She could no longer ignore it now.

With the utmost reluctance she began to explore the options available to her.

There were no Vulcan males on board. The Empire was wary of entrusting positions on board its warships to non-human individuals at all; perhaps it was wise to feel that multiples would be asking for trouble, though with the growing shortage of skilled crew for the war, that might change. So ... a human. (She thought briefly of Phlox, and dismissed the idea with a shudder.)

The captain. The idea was dismissed almost as soon as the idea entered her head. He took Lieutenant Sato to his bed on a regular basis, and Sato would not entertain the presence of a rival. Although not nearly as strong as a Vulcan, the lieutenant was cunning and unscrupulous; she would be quite capable of arranging for any ... accident ... she required to befall a lowly alien who trespassed on her province.

Commander Archer. She could imagine him sneering openly at the mere idea. Share his bed with a Vulcan? _In your dreams._

Major Reed. Cold fear squirmed in her guts at a memory she'd tried hard to forget. He wouldn't refuse, but the thought of being effectively trapped in a bed with all that twisted cruelty for however long her _pon farr_ lasted was simply spine-chilling.

Commander Tucker?

As prospective mates went, he was hardly the automatic choice – the delta radiation he'd been exposed to had seen to that. Once he might even have been quite handsome, by human standards, but the side of his face was burned and misshapen. His temper was short, his tongue sharp. Nevertheless, apart from his facial disfigurement he was physically attractive enough. She considered his body, and was conscious of a spike in her physiological responses. He might be amenable, although her pride revolted at the thought of having to reveal something that was usually kept private among her people, and humble herself to ask for his assistance in the matter.

There was no help for it. Shakily she rose to her feet and left her cabin.

He was in Engineering as usual. She heard him before she saw him, yelling at some hapless crewman for some infringement or other.

Her heart sank. He did not appear to be in the best of moods, and that would not make him any easier to approach. Still, she had noticed him summing up her body on previous occasions. He might not be all that difficult to persuade. After all, the experience would be pleasurable for him too.

She came to a halt beside him and waited for his diatribe to exhaust itself; it would hardly be diplomatic to interrupt him. His hard glance acknowledged her arrival, but he evidently didn't feel it warranted interrupting his flow of abuse. Eventually he had vented all his ire and dismissed the recipient of it to put right whatever damage had been done, with a hefty punishment on top of it.

"Commander." She kept her eyes down subserviently as his still smoldering gaze transferred itself to her.

"T'Pol." He waited, not pretending to be sufficiently interested in her to engage in polite small talk.

She licked her lips and summoned her courage. "Please … may I speak with you in private?" It would be difficult enough to broach the subject between just the two of them. To have others eavesdrop and learn of her plight would be unbearable.

His eyebrows lifted, but after a moment he gestured silently towards his office. She followed him in. The shelves were covered in spare parts. His desk was a clutter of PADDS and half-finished cups of coffee.

As soon as the door had hissed shut behind the two of them he turned and leaned against it, his arms folded in what she interpreted as a slightly defensive attitude. His voice, when he spoke again, had an undercurrent of understandable suspicion under the sarcasm.

"So what do I owe _this _honor to?"

A deep breath. "I … I require a favor of you."

His eyebrows rose even further; a faint, unpleasant smile twisted his mouth. "I'm all ears." His glance and quick snicker said it was yet another of those jokes that humans found so inexplicably amusing.

She ignored it.

"It is … something to do with Vulcan physiology." She swallowed, and went on arduously. "We … every seven years, we … have to mate." Almost without will, her eyes went to the portion of his anatomy that would be concerned, and she finished with a rush, desperate to get the facts out in the open between them. "This is happening to me. I must mate, or I will die."

He leaned forward slightly. His blue eyes had narrowed. "Are you askin' what I think you're askin'?"

"Yes," she said hopelessly.

The smile transmuted into a leer. "My, my. Isn't this my lucky day." He leaned back against the door, and shifted to draw her attention to the fact that he was definitely interested. It would have been rather hard to miss, even if she had not already been looking. "Well, I always oblige a lady. Just get your kit off and clear a space on the desk for your ass."

Heat swept over her, and not all of it was embarrassment. "It … lasts for a time. I will need … repeated … assistance."

Tucker laughed aloud at that. "If you Vulcans only screw every seven years, I damn well guess you would need it more than once when you get goin'!"

He crossed the room towards her, his eyes on her breasts. "Lucky Phlox owes me, isn't it? He can get me signed off sick for a coupl'a days. And I guess he might do the same for you if I ask him real nicely. Or I could threaten to give that bastard Reed an excuse to try that damned booth they're workin' on on _him._"

"Our … proximity would be noticed." She could smell him now. Under the surface taint of engine oil from his clothes, his body had a smell that was surprisingly attractive: she identified the oil from the Earth tree _Santalum Album_ as being the primary element of his shower gel, but it merely served to accentuate the clean, faintly musky odor of his skin.

A laugh. "You're worried about that? As long as we're not spreadin' our germs round the ship nobody'll give a damn what we get up to. We can say we're workin' the fever off if anyone asks."

Security cameras were part of life on an Imperial warship. For a moment she cringed at the thought that there would undoubtedly be one in Commander Tucker's quarters as well. It was unthinkable that he wouldn't know exactly where it was, but leaving it alone would be far less dangerous than tinkering with it; even if it wasn't booby-trapped to discourage exactly such meddling, to do so would be to invite questions of exactly what he was getting up to that he needed to hide. Sex might come under the heading of 'entertainment', but at least it wouldn't come under the heading of 'potentially treasonable activities'.

His hands came to rest on her waist. Even though she'd been expecting it, she fairly jumped as the contact sparked off nerve endings in her bare skin.

"It'll probably be best if I go down to Sickbay at the end of my shift," he whispered in her ear. The warmth of his breath on her neck made her shiver. "Come along to my cabin at twenty hundred hours."

She glanced around, trying to ascertain where the camera was in here. It was unthinkable that there wouldn't be one. Almost as unthinkable as the idea that she would be able to see it, however hard she looked.

He observed her anxiety and grinned. "You think I haven't got that covered? I can feed a loop into it whenever I want. As far as that's concerned I'm just sittin' at the desk here workin' on an upgrade schematic like a good little boy."

It was a risk, and he must know it, but here in the heart of his kingdom he had the skill and the tools to access and modify anything he chose to. At a guess he seldom used his office anyway, and the tapes from it would be viewed only negligently, if at all. His bedroom was a different matter, particularly if he had company.

His closeness and his touch were accelerating her heart and breathing rate. Unsurprisingly, he noticed the effect this had on her chest.

"I get the feelin' you don't really want to wait that long," he said softly. "Want me to give you somethin' to think about in the meantime?"

Her mouth was dry. "Yes," she croaked.

The blue eyes seemed to go a shade darker. "Yes, what?"

It was illogical to baulk at what she had already admitted. "Yes, please." The _plak tow_ was making her irrational, for she was angry, with him and with herself. She went on, feeling that she wanted to salvage at least a little dignity, "But I … I would like this kept between ourselves. And when it is over, it is over."

"No teasin', eh? No sendin' me notes in class, askin' for a date?" His hands were slipping upwards, firing off insane salvos of neuron activity. "I take it there's no chance of you havin' a little problem in nine months' time because of this?"

"No." Her voice quavered, however hard she tried to keep it level. Human and Vulcan DNA were probably incompatible, even if his genetic material hadn't been damaged by the delta radiation. At any rate, she would make absolutely sure that there would _not _be any 'problem'. Women on board a warship were given contraceptive injections as a matter of course.

"How about givin' _me_ somethin' to think about?" he breathed in her ear, as his fingers brushed lightly across her collar bones. "Just a quick peek." His eyes traveled to where the shadowy V of her cleavage was visible where the neckline of her uniform plunged. "And in case you hadn't noticed, I didn't say 'please'."

Silently she slid the zip down. Her fingers were so unsteady that she could hardly unfasten the three small buttons on the shirt beneath it. She was conscious of his gaze as being an almost palpable thing as the material fell loose.

His hands slid underneath the fabric, and on to her breasts. The air rushed into her lungs in a gasp.

Her knees buckled. She was obliged to lean against the desk as his working fingers disassembled her nervous system.

Moments later his mouth became involved. The sensations became so overwhelming that she had to press her fist against her lips to keep herself from screaming.

She _couldn't_ wait. And it soon became apparent that neither could he.

PADDs and coffee cups went flying.

He scooped her up as though she weighed nothing. If there had been any breath left in her lungs the impact with the desk would have slammed it out of her.

The short squeal of her pants zip was followed almost immediately by the longer one of his uniform. He couldn't have got out of his coveralls quicker if they'd been on fire. Hard hands pulled at her waistband, and she twisted willingly, helping him.

The coveralls had gone some way towards disguising how strongly built the Chief Engineer was. His broad shoulders and narrow waist presented a powerfully masculine combination that stoked her arousal. His pectoral muscles were solid, partially covered by a light fuzz of coarse hair; his flat stomach was equally toned, its surface broken only by the small indentation of his navel. His skin was smooth and fair, and was now displaying the faint flush of sexual excitement.

Her eyes were drawn inevitably downwards. Excitement and apprehension warred equally in her mind, as well as in the regions that were going to be most immediately concerned. Over the course of her 'service' on board Imperial ships she'd unfortunately become acquainted with human male genitalia, and she immediately realized that what had been a choice born of little more than logic and necessity was a very fortunate one.

He moved suddenly, grasping her by the shoulders and pulling her upper body towards him. Almost before she knew what was happening his mouth was on hers, his tongue plunging into it. For some inexplicable reason, this was so thrilling she didn't even think about how unbelievably unhygienic kissing was known to be. The symbolism was so obvious she found herself whimpering with excitement.

She clung to him, imprisoned within one strong left arm while his right hand slipped down her body and delved between her legs. The wetness he found there fetched a hard exhalation out of him.

There was no need for either of them to wait.

He hoisted her back on to the desk. Hands that were sure and purposeful positioned her before taking hold of her hips, bracing her for the onslaught to come.

The slight pressure at her entrance lasted only a split second before he lunged. The wave of sensation as his hardness surged into her almost stopped her breathing.

_Yes, yes… YES!_

She gasped and writhed, impaled on him. The heat that had been burning in her groin roared into a furnace, consuming her. Every slam of his body stoked it higher, until it was a terrifying thing that crumbled logic and thought and everything that was not centered on the place where his need met hers, feeding and destroying one another.

The wave crested. She clung to the top of it, terrified by the fall.

His shout dislodged her. They fell together, blind and frenzied, shattering each other. His insanity broke into her mind, merged with hers and became indistinguishable from it.

They emerged eventually into the blankness of exhaustion. She discovered that the desk was extremely uncomfortable, though its discomfort was partially compensated for by the sensation of having his body lying partially on top of her.

"Sonofabitch," he mumbled. His head was buried between her breasts. "That was _amazin'_."

"It was certainly most … agreeable."

A laugh quaked through him. "I suppose for a Vulcan, that's equivalent to a round of applause."

"It was the appropriate acknowledgement," she said a little stiffly.

"Right." He lifted his face and peered rather darkly at her. "I'm takin' that as a challenge. By the end of this 'pon far' thing of yours, you're goin' to be tellin' me it's a lot damn better than 'agreeable'."

Moving with something less than his usual grace, he straightened up and began pulling his uniform back on. "Better get yourself lookin' decent again too," he advised. "You never know who might forget to knock."

Shakily she sat up. She missed the top button and had to undo them and start again. Sexual satiation – however temporary – apparently had unforeseen side-effects.

He was picking up the PADDs again, tossing them casually back on to the desk. The cups went on to a shelf; at a guess, one of his subordinates would presently be ordered to return them to the Mess.

"Better get back on to duty." He paused in front of her, lifting her chin with a careless, calloused finger. "And don't forget: my quarters, twenty-hundred hours this evening. If you want more of the same, of course."

His smile both mocked and excited her. He was so sure of himself. So sure that she'd be there.

Which she would. The needing had been assuaged for now, but she knew it would return, hotter and fiercer. She couldn't fight it, and as she watched him walk out of the office she didn't want to. She wanted to feel that again, wanted to lose herself in the sensations he so skillfully and energetically provided. What she'd felt and seen of his body had only fed her desire, not quenched it.

"I shall be there," she whispered.

She had no choice.

She didn't want one.


	2. Chapter 2

"I believe you're not feeling well, Commander."

_Damnation. _But allowing his unease to show was the worst thing he could do. Tucker deliberately slowed down and faced the little British bastard.

You couldn't help feeling fear around Reed – not unless you were insane. But if you wanted to survive, you did your damnedest not to let him see it.

"I could spread it all round the ship if you prefer."

The gray eyes glinted; the hard mouth curved into a sly smile. "Oh, we wouldn't want that to happen. But then Phlox informs me strenuous exercise is very beneficial for some of these mysterious alien ailments."

_So help me, one of these days that Denobulan is going to have a mysterious meetin' with the warp core. _He shrugged and did his best to meet the stare indifferently. The ship's CMO had certified he was sick, and that was that. Phlox might have informed the MACO major of the development – or, more likely, the little snake had picked it up while he was scanning for any changes in the ship's supposedly 'confidential' files – but he was hardly likely to risk his own skin by admitting that the 'illness' was in fact nothing of the kind. As for T'Pol, the doctor had suggested that this 'infection' could plausibly have been caught through her, which would account for her having to be relieved of duty as well.

Reed studied him for a few moments longer, while Tucker endured the examination. Then the major gave a singularly unpleasant snigger. "Amazing scenery, I'll give you that," he purred, "but before you get your hopes up, she's just like all Vulcans – fucking frigid." He turned around and sauntered away.

_The thought of sharin' a bed with you would freeze a damn supernova, you warped little sonofabitch. _Tucker relaxed with something close to a shudder; the words had trembled on the edge of his tongue, but he'd known better than to utter them. The radiation breach that had disfigured the side of his face had occurred shortly after he'd first crossed swords with Reed, though nothing could be proved of course; the major's expression of shocked concern over the extent of the damage hadn't quite concealed the faint, mocking twinkle, not that it had ever been intended to. And that had been a relatively minor exchange.

However, if words wouldn't be safe, actions would be both safe and eloquent. Tucker had an ace up his sleeve that Reed almost certainly didn't know about, or he'd have acted accordingly. The chief engineer grinned smugly. Someone around here was in for the surprise of their goddamn lives when those recordings were reviewed. But by that time, at a guess, the Vulcan would be over this 'pon far' thing, and any attempts to defrost the Ice Princess again would be doomed to ignominious failure. He could only imagine the disappointment!

He'd just come from the Mess Hall, but at the thought of what was on the subsequent menu for him that evening, he increased his pace somewhat. He'd eaten a meal that contained plenty of protein, plus a dessert loaded with sugar to give his energy levels a sharp spike. He had a pleasant suspicion he was going to require both in short order.

Surprise, surprise, she was waiting for him in the corridor outside his cabin, with a handful of PADDs to provide some kind of cover story for anyone who might wonder at her presence there. He couldn't keep the smirk off his face, and didn't try. She wasn't in a position to take offense, after all, and he'd suffered often enough from her ill-concealed disdain of both his species and his looks.

"Kind of ya to bring them in person, Commander," he said for the benefit of a couple of crewmen going past. "Now, I believe there was some problem you wanted me to look into."

"Indeed." He watched her swallow. _Yeah, you'll be doing more of that before we're through._

He keyed in the code, making sure she couldn't see it. He was under no illusions: she wasn't going to be grateful for this. What they were going to do might save her life – if she was telling the truth, but he could imagine no earthly reason why she should be lying; it was beyond the bounds of credulity that she should invent some life-threatening condition to get into his bed – but she'd had to practically grovel for it, in Vulcan terms. She'd had to reveal something that certainly wasn't common knowledge, something that her people almost certainly kept a closely-guarded secret.

With that piece of hot information in his databanks, as well as a set of memories that he had every intention of making as thrilling as possible, Charles Tucker III was not going to be her favorite member of the crew. As far as he knew, she had no way to purge his memory of facts she'd rather not be in there. So she might just be mad enough to look for some means of purging him along with the rest of it.

But in the meantime, Charles Tucker III was _indispensable._ Until this 'pon far' thing was through, his safety was latinum-plated guaranteed. And hell, was he going to make the most of it.

As they walked through the door, he dropped his hand on to her ass. Mainly just for the feeling that he could, and there wasn't a damned thing she could do about it. He heard her breathing hitch, and grinned to himself. Yep, she was still hot. What he'd had earlier hadn't quenched his lust for her, nor evidently hers for him; it had just stoked it.

He strolled across to his computer and activated a programme. In his leisure hours he enjoyed listening to music; he even had it playing softly in the background when he was working on complex schematics. Now he found the file he wanted and loaded it. The first track started, and he began to sway to the beat, letting it take him.

"What's your problem, sweetheart?" he mocked, raising his hands above his head in a parody of an exotic dancer and letting his hips do the talking for him. "Don't Vulcans do dancin'?" _Bet they don't do it like this if they do,_ he thought.

She was staring at him. Her gaze raked from his mouth to his groin. He moved a little more suggestively, giving her the idea. "Come on, then, if you want it."

Her pace against the cabin wasn't exactly uncertain, though for sure he'd unbalanced her – exactly as intended. It suggested a predator unsure of just how helpless a potential victim is; a wolf who suspects that its exhausted quarry may yet retain the capacity to bite back. He could read her puzzlement like a book: bet the Vulcan database didn't mention _this_ in its entry on Human sexuality.

"I thought you would wish to mate," she said a little breathlessly.

"Believe you me, darlin', we are gonna 'mate' all damned night," he said, leering at her. "But I've just got this idea we could start off seein' how good you are at a little dirty dancin'. Just to get me in the mood."

He was lying through his goddamn teeth of course; just looking at her and knowing that he could – that he was _going to _– fuck her Vulcan ass off was enough to 'get him in the mood.' She, of course, had no way of knowing that. And if he was going to have fun, he was going to have absolutely all the fun there was going.

Her face a picture in its mixture of suspicion, bewilderment and interest, she stepped into grabbing range. He seized her wrist and pulled her close, right up against him, so that he could feel all those hot curves he'd shortly be seeing again mother-naked, and this time it wouldn't be for some quick fuck across a desk. "Arms round my shoulders," he breathed, since she obviously had no idea whatever what she was supposed to do next. "That way I can feel whatever of you I want to. And move. Listen to the music and move."

"I don't know the ste-" She got halfway through the protest before he rammed his hips against hers.

"Just go with that."

To judge by the whimper, she got the idea. At any rate, whether it was the music or the sensation of his dick against her belly, she stayed glued to him while he let his hands roam where they would, lapping up the feeling of her long, lithe body undulating against him. Hell, this song would never be the same again; he'd better be sure not to play it in company, or at least in company that wouldn't be disconcerted by him getting a record-breaking hard-on at the first couple of bars.

"…_Push, push, back up on it – Make me believe you want it –" _

He started to explore her neck with his lips and tongue. There was a faint sheen of perspiration on it already. Hell, Vulcan skin was sensitive, or perhaps it was just this 'pon far' thing. He felt the arms lying awkwardly around his shoulders twitch, and her breathing started to get faster.

_"Push, push, back up on it on it – girl, I can go home on it –"_

His hands slipped lower. He remembered, incongruously, his first attempt to get a feel of a girl at a dance. They'd slipped outside on to the terrace and he'd been a horny teenager, too excited to read the signs of her inexperience. Later – far too much later – he'd realized that if he'd been just a less pushy he'd have probably ended up getting laid, but as it was he'd just frightened her away, leaving him to frustration and cursing. He couldn't remember her name and it wasn't important, but the signals he was getting now were very similar. T'Pol, of course, wouldn't be a virgin and she sure as hell wasn't some skinny teenager with a couple of post-pubescent bumps on her chest. Nevertheless it was a fair bet that her experience of satisfying men's lust had taught her to endure rather than enjoy it. The hormones that were driving her now were running counter to her conditioning rather than with it.

_"Push, push back up on it – so I can lay it on it –"_

He had choices. He could do what every other man had done, and enjoy it; after all, she wasn't going to say _No_ to anything he wanted. She wasn't expecting any different. She didn't _know_ any different. If this morning was any indication, she'd just take whatever he handed out and get whatever satisfaction she could from it. And hell, she'd sure seemed like she'd gotten enough, even without his thinking about it.

_"Don't stop until the morning – just keep pushin' back on it –"_

His hands slid around her ass and cupped it. The fabric was rough in comparison to the satiny skin beneath it.

"Well, I don't know 'bout you, but I think I could do with a shower right about now," he said softly.

He watched the muscles in her throat move again.

Color stained her face as she stripped in front of him. He didn't help in any way; this was a pleasure he'd promised himself all afternoon, although on occasions it had forced him to adopt rather strange positions to prevent the entire staff of Engineering divining without the slightest difficulty that their boss wasn't concentrating on plasma flow or intermix ratios for once.

Jeez, if there was a more beautiful body in the Empire he hadn't seen it. He'd watched his share of porn, of course, but even the improbably well-endowed models seen engaging in various types of sexual activity with various numbers of partners hadn't come even close. Any human woman with this kind of beauty would revel in it, would use it to the maximum advantage; T'Pol, a Vulcan, would have few such opportunities. Dressed perforce in a uniform that was designed to show off the female figure, she was meat laid out on the butcher's slab. And he was going to gorge on it.

He pointed silently to the bathroom.

He followed her in, still not touching, but enjoying the effortless sway of her delectably rounded rear end. Her body was a poem of curves, her skin slightly olive in tone and flushed green along her cheekbones and ears. Her spine undulated as smoothly as water, poised atop those long, slender legs.

With an easy flick he switched on the shower. To the sound of the water starting up, he beckoned her closer.

"You want it, honey, you gotta unwrap it."

Her tongue ran nervously across her lips, but she didn't hesitate. The zip of his coveralls came down quickly, smoothly. He dropped his arms to his sides to allow her to slide the garment off his shoulders. Only a little coaxing was necessary to slide it down his hips, and he stepped out of it and left it lying.

Her fingers fumbled with the buttons of his shirt. At a guess she was a mite distracted by the view further south, where the removal of his coverall had allowed his enthusiasm a free rein that was hardly restricted at all by his blues.

"It's all yours, sweetheart," he said softly. "Everythin' comes in her who waits." After they'd both cleaned up, of course. His day hadn't exactly left him in the appropriate condition for close contact with a species notorious for their keen sense of smell.

The shirt came off over his head. His vest followed it. A lift of his eyebrows asked why the briefs were still on; shortly afterwards they weren't.

The water would be amply warm enough now – warm enough for a human, anyway. For a Vulcan it might be a bit on the cool side, but he wasn't too worried about that.

If he'd thought she looked stunning naked, what she looked when she was naked and _wet_ fairly took his breath away. He'd planned on playing it cool, keeping his distance, but the testosterone surge that followed the application of the first handful of shower gel took matters out of his conscious control. Before he quite knew what was happening, his tongue was conducting research into the back of her mouth and his weight was pinning her against the side of the shower cubicle, his erection pushing into her groin like an armed missile with a heat-seeking device.

Her legs parted willingly. Her whimpers rose to a crescendo of need. His hands were clamped under her buttocks; all he had to do was lift.

Somehow he got himself back in the driving seat, though he'd never know how. _"Wash!" _he snarled, pushing himself away from her.

She made as if to follow him, but a glare stopped her short. Her face twisting in desperation, she reached for the shower gel again. Stroked it over her breasts, down across her stomach, into her groin, while the water sheeted down and rinsed her clean, the smooth glissade of it broken by the twin hard points of her nipples and the indentation of her navel before it furled into the secret places between her legs.

"Now me."

This was obviously far more to her liking. He couldn't hold back a hissed breath of excitement as her gel-loaded hands pressed to his chest and began cleaning him, molding themselves around his musculature. He stood motionless, hands out and pressed to the cubicle at either side to help him keep them off her as she stroked the gel across his skin, rubbing it stealthily lower and lower…

He uttered a noise that was something between a moan and a curse. _Yeah. Oh, yeah. _

_Sonofabitch! _He hadn't expected that. She'd slipped to her knees in front of him, and her mouth was hotter than Vulcan's Forge. He gulped desperately, fighting for control as her tongue joined in. Her hands slid up his thighs, firing off more detonations of sensation expressly designed to break his resistance.

Hell, who wanted to resist anyway?

He dragged her back to her feet. Anger sparked at the glitter of triumph in her eyes, but it only added fuel to his lust.

She might be strong, but kilo for kilo she was far the slighter. He lifted her as easily as he had that morning, and slammed her against the wall. This one might be for her, but all the others were going to be all for him.

The action brought her breasts almost level with his face. That was an invitation he saw no reason to resist either. He took the erect nipples into his mouth, running his tongue around them before he started to suck on them, hard, listening to her squeals of excitement as she squirmed in his grasp. Her legs had wrapped around the back of his thighs, and her pelvis thrust against his belly in unmistakable invitation.

It wasn't polite to keep a lady waiting.

He let her slip down, slowly. When he thought she was about where he wanted her, he slid a hand down between them. His dick was hard, ready, and keen to go caving. Her sex was fully lubricated. _You want it, honey, try this for size. _He lowered her just a little further, and pushed in.

He'd thought his memory had been playing tricks when it said how tight her pussy had been, how hot and wet it had felt when he'd had her in his office. Now he found that his memory was actually functioning perfectly, except for the fact that perhaps the total weirdness of the experience had prevented it from recalling the sensations with the absolutely perfect clarity of those that were hitting him now.

Various strings of expletives exploded in his mind as he fought not to come there and then. He held her still with all the strength he could muster, not caring if it would leave bruises; he needed just a second to get ready to go to work.

Her arms wrapped around his neck. She started kissing him, her mouth as aggressive as his had been. Her tongue tasted of spice as it thrust into his mouth.

There comes a time when you have to just go with the flow.

She caterwauled like a mating cat, the sounds broken by the forcible expulsion of air at every slam of his body against hers. He didn't give a damn about the noise, screaming was a feature of life aboard an Imperial warship and if anyone heard it they sure as hell wouldn't come to investigate. He didn't even care if the shrieks were of pain or pleasure, they could have been either or both, but for him it was pure goddamn ecstasy. After a moment he pulled his mouth away from hers and bit down hard on the angle of her neck; it gave him a primeval sense of power to mark her as his property even as he took his mating rights.

The morning's little work-out helped. He managed to last until her body went into a series of spasms that clamped down in rolling waves on his working penis as if it was enclosed in something between a vacuum and a scalding hot vice.

He'd have screamed too, if he'd had the breath, but since he hadn't his frenzy vented itself in gasped and shattered syllables that echoed off the Plexiglas. He'd thought he'd been giving it everything but now found he hadn't – quite. The strength of his thrusts now fairly shoved her up the wall, and only later would he discover the perfect set of teeth marks in the top of his shoulder; just at this moment he had no thoughts to spare for anything but the sensations that pulsed through him in molten, heart-stopping waves.

They ebbed eventually, however. And his heart was drubbing in his chest, but it hadn't arrested, though his legs felt like cooked spaghetti and his arms were suddenly heartily glad to let their burden slide down the wall to the floor, where she collapsed in a boneless heap.

Automatically he fumbled for a handful of shower gel. Best to wash again while he still could. There was a night to get through still; he wasn't finished with her yet, not by a long chalk. And she could do the same as soon as she'd recovered enough. He grinned down at her as he lathered gel into his hair. _Just 'agreeable', huh? Think of anythin' more enthusiastic yet, darlin'? Oh, you will. Sooner or later. Or my name's not Charles Tucker the Third._

Vulcan strength was evidently as great as rumor made it. She was pulling herself together, reaching for the shower gel on her own account. But she didn't stand up, only turned so that she was back on her knees again. And in front of him. And as far as he knew, there were no regulations against multi-tasking.

He shut his eyes. But only briefly. It would be _much_ more fun to watch.


	3. Chapter 3

Major Reed strolled into his office and sat down in front of the monitor on his desk.

Security protocols dictated that practically every moment of life aboard the Imperial flagship be recorded and reviewed. It was impossible to be too suspicious; traitors were everywhere. He'd even succeeded in rooting a few of them out since coming on board, and although engineering their demise had been enjoyable, even his skills hadn't made them suffer really long enough. That was one reason why he and Phlox were combining their skills on that new project. It was coming along nicely, too. The animal they'd used for the test subject in the prototype today had made some really astonishing noises, he reflected, smiling. The only disappointment was that it had died after a couple of hours (Phlox said, from shock) and that wouldn't do. They'd have to do a bit more refining before it was ready for use; the pity was that he had relatively little free time to devote to it, so progress might be slower than he would have liked.

So. Security issues.

It was a dull job, most times. He rostered out to subordinates the task of screening the more mundane items, though of course he laid traps on a fairly regular basis and woe betide anyone who failed to spot and report something that might have been noteworthy. (De la Haye had got careless last month. Well, he hadn't marked her anywhere that would show when she was in uniform, and the internal bruising would heal eventually.)

Yesterday, however, he'd instituted a lockdown on one particular set of recordings. It wasn't as though he restricted his staff from viewing their crewmates' more intimate activities, and occasionally more intriguing recordings went viral; nevertheless, he intended to reserve for himself the amusing scenes of that scarred oaf from Engineering trying to shag what amounted to a sex doll with a cardiovascular system. It'd be a bloody miracle if Tucker even got it up, though presumably getting it up had been what had put him in this predicament in the first place. Must have been desperate, trying it on with that frigid bitch in the first place – though that unfortunate incident with the radiation breach had certainly ruined his good looks for him, so perhaps an alien was the only shag he was likely to get. 'Better than masturbating, but only just' probably summed up the situation of bedding T'Pol. During his own initiation of her into life on board the Imperial flagship, he'd occasionally felt like stopping to check that she was actually still breathing.

He ran through the files with the speed of long practice, and found the one he required. The 'password protected' warning blinked at him knowingly.

Smiling, he keyed in the code and sat back to enjoy the fun.

* * *

"Why?"

"Trust me."

She looked at him. The Vulcan database hadn't mentioned this either, though it was extremely discreet about mentioning anything that Humans might consider sensitive information; the Empire had what passed for a reputation to keep up. Perhaps this came under that heading.

'Trust me', indeed. She trusted him considerably less far than she would have been able to throw him, but right now her options were limited. If she didn't cooperate, neither would he. And right now, she needed his cooperation.

Among other things.

Slowly she extended her arms.

He wrapped a thick layer of insulating foam around each wrist and anchored it carefully with duct tape before tying the one of the lengths of cable on top of it. He ordered her to check that she could still use her hands and she obeyed, though it seemed rather a pointless exercise, if she understood his intentions correctly.

"Good. Now lie back an' think of Vulcan."

She suspected this was another of those Human jokes, so she didn't attempt to comply as she lay back and allowed him to spread her arms.

She hadn't expected to feel real fear as she felt him securing the other end of the cables to the bed frame. She might be an alien, she told herself, but she was an officer; she had value, for what she could do if not for what she was. He wouldn't dare harm her.

Would he?

She was stronger than he, but not stronger than twelve-strand cable. And the knots weren't a joke.

He sat back and looked at her. There was a strange expression on his face. The thumping of her heart was already fast. Now it became erratic.

More insulation. More duct tape. Two more lengths of cable. And her ankles.

* * *

Reed sat forward.

His frozen incredulity moved up a notch.

The _Shuttlepod?_

There weren't actually any rules to say that crewmembers who were off sick couldn't take any action necessary to safeguard the property of the Empire, so he couldn't report them for breaking quarantine. They were both wearing steri-gloves, so as not to spread the infection. No incriminating them on that score. And checking a separate set of readouts, Tucker had found time from somewhere to run a scheduled diagnostic. He'd even found an error code and fixed the problem, even if it was a minor one.

At least they hadn't used the co-pilot's chair. _He_ had to sit in that, when he was using the weapons console. And Commander Archer would undoubtedly have had strenuous objections if they'd used the pilot's seat, but unfortunately he couldn't report them on that score either.

That bench at the back would probably have sustained stress fractures if it had been made of ordinary metal. It was reinforced with duranium, though, like the rest of the craft. The chief engineer had obviously thought of that before he bent her over it.

Bastard.

* * *

He went into the bathroom again and emerged carrying a small bowl of water and another object that she recognized after a moment as a sponge. Vulcans did not use such things, as they were so obviously an ideal breeding-ground for bacteria. Humans were known to be less particular in their hygiene practices; witness the fact that they actually touched their food with their bare hands.

Not to mention kissing. Though she'd already discovered for herself that this reprehensible practice had dismayingly strong compensations for its lack of hygiene.

He'd made sure her head was resting on the pillow, so she could get a good view of events.

There was a folded towel over his arm. He maneuvered her body to get the thick soft material underneath her, and then he picked up the sponge again.

It was slick with gel, but the ooze did little to mask the slight roughness of it sliding slowly across her flesh.

He was thorough. He soaped her from one set of bindings to the other, taking his time. The pressure of the sponge varied, sometimes hard enough almost to draw a half-gasp of protest from her, at others so light it almost ghosted over her skin.

When she was slick from heel to wrist, he threw down the sponge and mounted her without a word.

He neither spoke nor looked at her, simply penetrated her and began thrusting. With deliberate, agonizing slowness. The sensation of his body sliding on top of hers was incredible, not to mention the renewed stimulation of tissues still hypersensitive from his efforts in the shower. She heard herself begin moaning, and knew that begging wasn't far away, but she looked at his closed, indifferent face and knew he wouldn't heed her.

* * *

No. Not in the _Mess Hall_.

Admittedly it was rare for gamma-shift crew to take time off to snatch a drink when they weren't actually on break, and this visit had obviously been carefully timed, but still, occasionally somebody would obtain permission from a Department Head who'd got laid the night before.

So it was risky.

But Tucker was evidently more of a risk-taker than he'd been given credit for.

And the regulations didn't say anything about sitting in a chair in the Mess with a half-naked Vulcan under the table in front of you. At least, they didn't _yet_. And unfortunately, he didn't think he could make any changes retroactive.

Switch camera angles as he might, he couldn't get a close-up on what was actually going on, but given the fact that Tucker's sweat-pants were round his ankles he could make an educated guess. And the expressions on the engineer's face were a bit of a giveaway too, just in case he needed one.

Much to his annoyance, they were wearing new steri-gloves too. A different colour, just to make it obvious. And afterwards, just as they'd done in the shuttlepod, they carefully wiped any surfaces they might have touched with anti-bacterial wipes, which they disposed of exactly as per regulations.

* * *

_Aaaah. Aaaaah. Aaaaaah._

She couldn't bear the tension, couldn't bear the sensations. She could feel the pressure of her climax building with every slow, powerful surge of his body.

Closer. Closer. Her arms strained against the cables. But for the padding, her wrists would be bleeding by now.

Closer. Very close. Terrifyingly close. Just – _there_ –_!_

He pulled out of her.

An almost animal howl of deprivation broke into a million echoing shards against the wall of his inflexibility, and didn't even scratch it.

He slid off the bed and picked up the sponge again.

The water in the bowl was cold. Gooseflesh followed its trail, and her cries echoed off the walls of the cabin. The cords squeaked against the bed frame as she fought to get free. Without success.

His breath was warm against her chilled flesh. Warm, but almost intangible, when she was half insane with the craving for contact, for completion.

Tiny dabs of his tongue formed a trail through the wetness. He lapped water daintily out of her navel.

Arousal and cold had made her nipples hard. She could feel his eyes on them, but his mouth took its time. He drew patterns with his tongue on her breasts, circling and gliding but always missing, while her moans and cries fell on deaf ears. Then – a lick as light as a snowflake falling, though no snowflake could burn against her skin that way –

The cords squeaked again, violently. Went on squeaking.

So deft and gentle, a tiny, repeated torture that sent shockwaves through her body. She arched and writhed, trying to drive him on.

He got back on to the bed.

Yes. Oh, yes.

Yes. Yes! _Yes-!_

_No._

He got off it again.

Vulcan dignity dictated that abuse was beneath her. Epithets ricocheted off the bulkheads, interspersed with pleading. She was beyond dignity, beyond anything but needing him.

He was suckling at her now, still gentle. The only part of him that was touching her was his mouth. She howled, thrusting her pelvis upwards, begging him to have her.

After some minutes, he stopped. He still didn't speak, but he picked up her discarded undershirt and slipped it over her head, leaving it halfway down. The fabric was nowhere near dense enough to impede her breathing, but she could no longer see.

She whimpered.

The silence after that was denser than mortal dread. Her ears strained, trying to pick up from the slight sounds of movement what he was doing.

Her ankles slammed against the cords. A noise that hardly qualified as coming from a sentient being tore from her throat.

His head was between her legs. The sensations ripped through her. Tongue and fingers, working in perfect unison, with deadly precision.

She couldn't stop now, didn't want to stop. The climax burst in her groin, and she announced every pulse of it through her body with a shriek that could have been heard on the Bridge. Halfway through her raving, she dimly felt a flurry of movement. Seconds later, a different but absolutely as effective form of stimulation took the place of the first. His erection smashed into her, completing the ruin of her sanity; she could hardly even hear his bellowing as he ejaculated his heat into her yet again.

Reality returned slowly. But not quite reality as it had been before. As he collapsed on top of her, spent, she began shakily reassembling her thoughts, and found something had changed.

Something was different; not in her body, now quivering and sated, but in her mind.

She could – _feel _him.

With mingled horror and excitement, she analyzed the situation. Agonizingly careful not to alert him to what had happened, though his almost drugged stupor helped her here; touching the very edges of this strange consciousness with aching caution, lest it become aware of hers in its turn.

Between Vulcans, the _pon farr _could create a mating bond. She hadn't believed it possible that it could happen between a Vulcan and a Human. But apparently it could – and it had.

She had access to his mind.

On the one hand, this was terrifyingly dangerous. If he became aware of it, he would quite possibly arrange for her to have a fatal accident in very short order. Life on board an Imperial warship was dangerous enough without having someone else with the ability to make you what Humans called their 'catspaw'. He'd harbor no illusions about her willingness to do so.

On the other, he would make a very, very useful catspaw indeed if ever events gave her need of one. Now she'd created the hunger for her in him, she could make use of it to draw him in. Just the suggestion of her wanting him would trigger his response, however his native suspicion of her urged him to resist. And as long as she could keep him in ignorance of the bond, he would be totally unaware of her capacity to ensnare and control him. That wouldn't be difficult; Humans had so little mental discipline that they were barely above animals, living in the sensory stream without ever bothering to check their mental structures for flaws.

She was still tied to the bed. Doubtless as soon as he recovered he'd set about releasing her, and at a guess he'd order one of his subordinates to bring food to his cabin. They'd eat, and afterwards … well, the fever was subsiding, but it wasn't over yet. If she was very, very careful, she could … practice.

T'Pol of Vulcan might be tied by the wrists and ankles, but without his even knowing it, Chief Engineer Charles Tucker III was now tied by a far more dangerous method.

_His brain_.

* * *

Not the Armoury. They wouldn't dare. Besides, there was someone there at all times. He knew that. If any of his staff had left it unattended – if they so much as set foot in the place…

His shaking, furious breath of relief was premature.

The weapons storage area was off limits to _anyone_ except Armoury personnel. He sat forward. _Just touch that door control, Commander bloody Tucker, and I'll have you nailed naked on the deflector dish – _

+++ SENSOR MALFUNCTION+++RECORDING TERMINATED+++

**The End**


End file.
